oh lou, when i was a kid and i used to go to new york. i would walk around downtown unofficially looking for you, hoping i would bump into you. i was such a nerd.

then, one time i did and you were quite nasty. it wasn't your fault. i know i was the bigger jerk.
you had places to be, people to see. i was young and a dummy.

even though i was so bummed out, i still thought so fondly of you. i still do.

this morning, i'm taking a walk in my neighborhood and you are everywhere i go.

R.I.P. NEW YORKER FILMS

after forty-three years in the business, bringing us films from the likes of louis malle, jean-luc godard, bernardo bertolucci and werner herzog, new yorker films has folded. stupid money.

they have one last film set for theatrical release, carlos saura's fados.

cheers to the people who brought us my dinner with andre, one of my personal favorites. damn.

PEOPLE LIKE US REMIXES THE INAUGURAL POEM
and makes it infinitely better. this is what should have been.



tonight i am in love with this woman, vicky bennett, aka people like us. i'm blown away.



a wonderful discovery, though far too late in the game. please investigate more here.

what’s round and really violent?
a vicious circle.

"this isn't going to hurt is it?"

"if it does hurt, joy, just shout out, like when you' re in labour.
cos, my charleen had a very big head, you see."

"i can't stand pain."
"can't you, joy?"

"ow!"
"that's it, joy"



processed screen captures from mike leigh's the short and curlies, 1987

"Well, if I hadn't done it, someone else would have done it, sure.
Because nobody has a monopoly on talent." (Dizzy Gillespie)

CHARLEEN, dir. ROSS MCELWEE, 1978

valentine's day 2009: we saw SPARKS at royce hall, playing exotic creatures of the deep and kimono my house in their entirety, plus a generous handful of other hits in the encore. theatrical, inspiring, wonderful to watch. russell mael sounds amazing. and the crowd: a delightful mix of young people (a few in kimonos) and older diehards, including a plump woman i saw in the bathroom (lightwash denim long skirt and top; i might have pegged her as a fourth grade teacher) who i heard say, "there's no such thing as a bad sparks show." and there really isn't.

there was a large projection screen onstage. at the end of the first act, each of sparks' twenty-one albums appeared, and ron mael pretended to set fire to each album ceremoniously, one by one. he crouched at the bottom of each image with a lighter and watched every album (with the exception of the last!) burn up in digital flame. this was meant to be funny, i think, but it was touching, too. i wondered what it must have felt like for ron and russell to see their whole life's work set out before them, a career spanning multiple genres, reinventions and almost four decades, and all in front of a sold out, adoring, cheering crowd.

it's no wonder people still want to be rock stars.

KIRA is here! and she has a great place in los feliz. driving home from visiting her late last week, i took the winding roads to franklin all the way home, trailing the same car at a steady distance for a good portion of the way. the curves and slow speed made me feel like something out of double indemnity. the pursuit feeling. like i was getting away with it.

and then there's CHARLEEN. her namesake film reveals a more complicated, volatile woman than the charleen of sherman's march, but she's just so...something. something else. place your trust in those who laugh easily, especially at their own expense.

yesterday the light was superb and all i had to do was frame the shot. i was totally at peace right where i needed to be.

i walk past images everyday and i always think i should photograph that, i need to get a picture of that.
walking or driving past them, those images become part of a subconsciousness, a little landmark or punctuation of thought.
i guess that is exactly what advertising is all about - “today i’m going to be effective and optimistic full of positive ideas! wow, i sure am thirsty for pepsi. i don’t even like pepsi.”
when i finally take a picture of it with my camera. the photo replaces the actual sight and slips deeper into a forgotten zone. the landscape changes or is removed and the unconscious punctuation is released.

something happened wednesday, didn’t it? i know that i felt something and yet i feel like i nodded out. i went inward. it makes me want to say nothing and frown a little as i look out of the corners of my eyes - side to side.

there was weather in the air. i am trying to remember wednesday and it is very hard to get a clear image of it. was that the day that daschle withdrew and resigned? no, that was tuesday. wednesday was the fallout from that. the feeling of trepidation and doubt. i know that i worked. but it slipped by and into thursday and confused my comprehension of an actual day.

i am in the middle of a mystery. i overlook clues. i look past the moment and lo and behold it’s saturday. i think part of it had to do with a local bartender’s misunderstanding of how to make a martini on the rocks with a twist by pouring straight vodka into a glass highball full of ice with a twist of lemon and me exploiting said misunderstanding by ordering a second round. but wait that happened on thursday.

wednesday, oh yeah, de kooning was erased again by rauschenberg.

hmmm.

Robert Rauschenberg, Erased de Kooning Drawing, 1953

PAINTERS PAINTING, dir. EMILE DE ANTONIO, 1972
now available to watch in its entirety on ubuweb. well worth it. click here.

blue photos of berlin from aaron rose.

ignore doom. keep working to find a door - a window - a place. this is what juliet calls the good fight. i'm shaky at first. i step lightly out the front and then hit the sidewalk hard with my feet.
everyday is a new possibility. i wonder if i'm missing. i wonder daily if i'm gone. i look over the last few days of my project book. the handwriting - the bent pages - the messiness says more than the words themselves.

i sometimes miss the grey days cold, but that's not where i live. the light here is bright and if you ever visit los angeles make sure to come now - january and february are the most beautiful days here. los angeles in fact does have its seasons. you go for a few days and suddenly realize why so many came here originally. it's clear and warm during the day but not too warm, chilly at night. the perfection of the weather is illustrated with either a stylish jacket worn for several days in a row, or in half naked newcomers that flit effortlessy happy to be in a place so mild from the dead of winter to the clear shot of the house on the hill.

"Pepi, Luci, Bom… is a film full of defects. When a film has only one or two, it is considered an imperfect film, while when there is a profusion of technical flaws, it is called style. That’s what I said joking around when I was promoting the film, but I believe that that was closer to the truth." (Pedro Almodovar)

i am inclined to apply the same principle to my shoddy photographs of the television screen: messy, off-angled, naive on purpose. i couldn't figure out how to edit the reflection of the bookcase out of her hair. it looks as if the image is trapped behind a screen door. also, we could only manage to find the vhs, which was crappy quality already. but that's all style, not imperfection. take it from pedro. take it and run with it. apply it to everything. i am rife with "technical flaws" just waiting to be redeemed by this thinking.

this movie is: intelligent, risky, funny, perverse, messy, colorful, lively--very promising in terms of my almodovar festival this month. i'm moving in as complete and chronolgical an order as i can manage, which is very exciting to me--the first time i've ever tackled one filmmaker's work in such an organized manner. i'm getting better at this!

happy first of the month.

juliet celebrates each first of the month with a clean slate, a start of a new place, a new thought. each month is a cycle of days weeks and hours. the month ends like in a funnel. the remaining hours pass quickly through. what did we do last month? what will we do this month? how is it different than the days before the end of the last month?

personally, this feels like one of those big months. 28 days, full of promises to be met. things to do, oh things to do, will i do all the things to do. those that need taking care of, those i simply want to do.

february is a short cropped month. it’s fast and if we are not careful it will slide right past us while we watch our favorite shows, read our friends’ posts, work sleep love work sleep love work sleep love one another.

february is a valentine at the speed of light.


things i am planning to do in february in no particular order:
- produce at least 2 collections of songs with two separate groups of collaborators.
- work with j s e on the graphics and packaging for both collections.
- construct the next touch touch publishing mix with j s e
- dismiss my guilt by starting and this time finishing paul auster’s “leviathan.”
- run at least 3 times a week.
- make juliet realize that she is the most loved and cherished girl in los angeles or the world for that matter.
- make more home cooked meals
- save money
- ignore doom
- help the owner of the company where i work to completely change his brand to meet the economic challenges of the months to follow
- film and produce at least one touch touch publishing short movie
- begin our in depth look at the work of pedro almodovar
- continue capturing the passing moments of our life in photographs and and field recordings.